Stay Express Inn Near Ft. Sam Houston in San Antonio

There were no body towels. I spilled water and used a hand towel to wipe it, the towel turned blak from the dirty floor. I arrived in the daylight (6 pm) and the door was blocked. I had to get my key through the night window. The room was disgusting!

There was no Lobby - we had to talk to the person through the security window. That's disrespectful. The lighting fixture wasn't working and the room was not well cleaned.

We stayed on second floor and it creaked with every step. The bed had a spring that had sprung loose and tore through the mattress cover that would poke you if you got out of bed wrong. There were cigarette burns in the mattress sheets. The toilet didn’t flush very well. Thought it was going to overflow several times. Not many free outlets to plug into. Had to unplug the lamp and clock to charge my phone and computer. The “front desk” is a foggy “night window” that is hard to see and hear through. All that aside, it served its purpose of being somewhere cheap that we could crash for the nights while we were out and about during the days. Lots of food nearby and places to drink if that’s your thing.

on 3/21/17 - 3/22/17 A woman died after being rushed to the hospital with a gunshot wound to the stomach she had sustained during an altercation with a man at the Stay Express Inn motel parking lot. Police say the murder suspect who fled the scene is a white male who was driving a dark colored Toyota Tercel who had a violent confrontation with the women before her death around 12:30 at night. she brought a baseball bat to a gun fight and lost the battle for her life. she baited the murder suspect to shoot her and he did just that and shot her dead. the women in her 20s was taken to the hospital with a life threatening injury and ended up dying early this morning on 3/22/17. neither the man nor the woman is believed to be a resident at the hotel. if the police catch the murder suspect he will be facing murder charges.

2 stars because on the outside, you wouldn't think it's that terrible.

Check in was pleasant. Walk in to room: the room reeked of cigarette smoke, the bathroom light was flickering like a strobe light but not as badly, the bed blanket had cigarette burn holes, and the bed sheet had hairs on it and just felt unclean. I made the mistake of not reading reviews prior to booking and just went with the cheapest around because of spring break prices. Oops! Not even 2 hours later we looked for another hotel and did an early check out. The desk person didn't even seem to care we were checking out early. Surprised.. but careless. It's a last-resort hotel. Good luck!

This place is empty while Knights Inn that shares the same parking lot, but with actual car, is practically full. Why? Might be rates. Stay Express, still an unknown franchise, has no pulling power. The rooms are nice, until something goes wrong. AC stopped cooling sometime during the night, and asked the manager to help while I was extending my stay for another night. (Wrong choice.) He switched it on and off a few times, decided it was out of order, and said I should change rooms. Not that they should swap the ACs. (I've done this alone many times when guests at my hotel reported an outage) but that I needed to pack up and move 300 ft plus up a flight of stairs, to a smaller room with fewer amenities and a terrible, tiny bathroom without room to hang up my towel, and no discount or even an apology.
I'm guessing that's the problem.